Mystery Shopping Thread 21 *PLEASE READ THE OP FIRST**PLEASE NO CLIENT NAMES OR FEES*

marvellousaunt

katastrophy wrote: »

I was wondering if some kind soul could possibly help me with a query? I'm doing an underground sandwich job on Friday and the assignment notes ask me to make a note of team members names. I can't see anywhere on the questionaire to enter them though. I've done loads of these jobs in the past but can't for the life of me remember whether it was needed. I'm just a bit worried as 4 people serve at my local store and I don't know how I'll remember them all if I have to!

If it's RE, there are spaces you can include this information when talking about the team members or describing your visit as a whole. It is not required though, and in my experience they often don't wear name badges. You'll be served by between 1-3 staff members maximum so you can jot them down in an empty text message on your phone without looking suspicious if you can't remember them. Don't worry too much about this.

Boredupnorth

N.I.M wrote: »

Someone must be reporting them.

That was what i thought last week but they came back, now they are gone again. If they had been kicked off then they would not have been able to post today?

N.I.M

Boredupnorth wrote: »

That was what i thought last week but they came back, now they are gone again. If they had been kicked off then they would not have been able to post today?

Might be posts being reported rather than the user? Wondering if there might be another ms company doing it?

wordsearch

I'm a little confused about tax and the like - I've recently been doing a couple of shops which had no fee at all, literally just the cost of the majority of a meal or whatever. Do I have to list this and get taxed on it or not?

DevilsAdvocate1

wordsearch wrote: »

I'm a little confused about tax and the like - I've recently been doing a couple of shops which had no fee at all, literally just the cost of the majority of a meal or whatever. Do I have to list this and get taxed on it or not?

Yes you do, unless you can argue that there was another reason for you to do the job. This can be difficult to do. If you did the job in order to get the benefit then it is taxable.

katastrophy

marvellousaunt wrote: »

If it's RE, there are spaces you can include this information when talking about the team members or describing your visit as a whole. It is not required though, and in my experience they often don't wear name badges. You'll be served by between 1-3 staff members maximum so you can jot them down in an empty text message on your phone without looking suspicious if you can't remember them. Don't worry too much about this.

Thanks for your relpy that's really helpful, I was starting to panic! I'll try the phone tip out, it might stop me panicking and getting flustered!

Trevor64_2

Originally Posted by HelionResearch
We always like feedback and try to improve things as much as we can.
Just some feedback from our seat.

Yes, shopper feedback is important, and it would be good if shoppers like Trevor64, would contact us directly instead of us having to dig through all forums around the world to answers queries As far as we know we are not kicked of this forum yet

First of all our payment terms are clearly stated and communicated to all our shoppers prior to sign up and the work they do. We always pay around the 20th of the month so it can take up to even 50 days for payment to hit your account, if you do a shop the first day of the month. But also it can take up to 25 days if you do a shop at the end of the month.

Something we cannot help is you can see we work with most large companies and their payment terms even in the UK are 90 days or more. Some shops are rejected by clients, and we need the ability to reject them from the shoppers if the client s is correct and the shopper has either not followed guidelines or fraud the report, which also explains the delay in pay.

Currently its impossible to pay all our shoppers in their local currency ( we work in over 90 countries) To compensate any change in currency we normally also pay more than other companies for similar work.

In this case Trevor would have lost about 0,10 eurocent due to the exchange rate on a 15 Euro job.. which is also the case the other way around.

Again it’s a free world and people can decide for themselves which companies they work for or not.

You can always reach me direct on [EMAIL="eaben@helionresearch.com"]eaben@helionresearch.com[/EMAIL] or through our FB page.

Whether or not Helion are still active on the forum I feel I must respond to this comment since I am referenced more than once in the text.
Firstly, I think that I make a valid point when I say that up to 59 days is excessive. Many companies based both in the UK and elsewhere offer payment processing on 1st 15th, or 30th of the month. Some pay more than onece a month, some pay within a few days of the job being edited and approved.
Secondly, all these companies face the same issues regarding client acceptance of reports and validation of data but the MS company is aware of the requirements and scenario to be adhered to. If a client rejects a shop on the basis that they don't like what they hear but the scenario has been correctly followed then this is not the fault of the shopper and consequently he/she should not be unduly penalised.
If yhe MS company know that a fair and honest report has been submitted by the shopper and all the requirements of the asignment have been correctly met then thats should be good enough to approve payment.
Thirdly, I should say that whilst I mentioned Helion as an example this was in no way intended to indicate that Helion are not a reputable, honest or reliable company. I enjoy the work I've done for Helion and will continue to work for them. I simply wished to point out that I feel the timeframes on payments seem unduly long when measured against other MS companies who face the same issues.
Also, I do not "dig through all the forums of the world", I simply felt a need to input into the discussion already taking place on this particular forum. I do not subscribe to any other MS forums and wonder why Helion feel the need to speculate so on this.
Helions response makes it quite clear that they are happy with thei payment system and will publicly defend what they perceive as it's merits. That's fine, but it does rather point out that direct contact is not going to change that.
It's up to the individual who they wish to work for and for how much. We accept payment terms in good faith and most of the time there are no problems.
I simply pointed out my opinion that Helion payments take too long. That's my opinion and forums exist to allow people to voice their opinions.
This has dragged on a bit so I'll stop there. Besides I have a couple of jobs to complete for Helion ironically.
No hard feelings Helion and a happy new year to you.

N.I.M

Anyone currently able to see any assignments on TNS Sassie? I've not once seen a single job on it even though I'm regularly told I'm signed up for all their panels etc.

polythenegirl

I assume with the GFK internet calls you need to actually be living in the postcode that on the assessment?

misssarahleigh

polythenegirl wrote: »

I assume with the GFK internet calls you need to actually be living in the postcode that on the assessment?

No. But once you accept the assignment and see the coversheet your postcode must match the region e.g. Yorkshire.

I did one for 'The North' As my partners postcode is North Yorkshire. Asked them about this and they said that the report was wrong as the postcode I used wasn't 'The North' but 'Yorkshire'.

I explained that it should be more clear as this information is only avaliable once the assignment has been accepted and asked them to change the report to the correct region as it's perfectally valid.

Didn't hear back after that.